Who's Making Money In Music? Not Starbucks

Starbucks has booted the head of its entertainment
group, and is handing over management duties for its record
business to Concord Music Group. Depending on which version of
the story you read, this either "underscores Starbucks’s interest
in pursuing sales of music and other products online"
(NYT)
or that "entertainment ended up being a distraction for the
company and helped it lose focus on coffee" (WSJ).

But in either case, it's clear that in-store music sales, once
one of Howard Schultz's big ideas for the company, are getting
shelved. A couple of years ago, Starbucks was being lauded as a
new player in the business after it helped sell lots of copies of
a Ray Charles album, but that was about the high point. Last
spring, the company made a lot of noise after signing Paul
McCartney to an exclusive deal. Then it found out that you can
sell people a $4 cup of coffee, but you can't force them to buy
an aging Beatle's new music.